Zanoni eBook

It was then that Glyndon, with a cold and distinct
precision, detailed, as he had done to Adela, the
initiation through which he had gone. He described,
in words that froze the blood of his listener, the
appearance of that formless phantom, with the eyes
that seared the brain and congealed the marrow of
those who beheld. Once seen, it never was to
be exorcised. It came at its own will, prompting
black thoughts,—­whispering strange temptations.
Only in scenes of turbulent excitement was it absent!
Solitude, serenity, the struggling desires after peace
and virtue,—­these were the elements
it loved to haunt! Bewildered, terror-stricken,
the wild account confirmed by the dim impressions
that never, in the depth and confidence of affection,
had been closely examined, but rather banished as
soon as felt,—­that the life and attributes
of Zanoni were not like those of mortals,—­impressions
which her own love had made her hitherto censure as
suspicions that wronged, and which, thus mitigated,
had perhaps only served to rivet the fascinated chains
in which he bound her heart and senses, but which
now, as Glyndon’s awful narrative filled her
with contagious dread, half unbound the very spells
they had woven before,—­Viola started up
in fear, not for herself, and clasped her child
in her arms!

“Unhappiest one!” cried Glyndon, shuddering,
“hast thou indeed given birth to a victim thou
canst not save? Refuse it sustenance,—­let
it look to thee in vain for food! In the grave,
at least, there are repose and peace!”

Then there came back to Viola’s mind the remembrance
of Zanoni’s night-long watches by that cradle,
and the fear which even then had crept over her as
she heard his murmured half-chanted words. And
as the child looked at her with its clear, steadfast
eye, in the strange intelligence of that look there
was something that only confirmed her awe. So
there both Mother and Forewarner stood in silence,—­the
sun smiling upon them through the casement, and dark
by the cradle, though they saw it not, sat the motionless,
veiled Thing!

But by degrees better and juster and more grateful
memories of the past returned to the young mother.
The features of the infant, as she gazed, took the
aspect of the absent father. A voice seemed to
break from those rosy lips, and say, mournfully, “I
speak to thee in thy child. In return for all
my love for thee and thine, dost thou distrust me,
at the first sentence of a maniac who accuses?”

Her breast heaved, her stature rose, her eyes shone
with a serene and holy light.

“Go, poor victim of thine own delusions,”
she said to Glyndon; “I would not believe mine
own senses, if they accused its father! And
what knowest thou of Zanoni? What relation have
Mejnour and the grisly spectres he invoked, with the
radiant image with which thou wouldst connect them?”

“Thou wilt learn too soon,” replied Glyndon,
gloomily. “And the very phantom that haunts
me, whispers, with its bloodless lips, that its horrors
await both thine and thee! I take not thy decision
yet; before I leave Venice we shall meet again.”